1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telephone systems, and, in particular, to telephone systems capable of offering enhanced telecommunications services.
2. Description of the Related Art
A significant number of telephone calls go unanswered, with their intended purpose defeated, as a result of the called party""s either being not available to answer or being busy on another call. Although a number of remedies for this problem have been proposed, for example, the use of answering service bureaus or private answering machines,or the implementation of customized call-waiting telephone service, these have not proven particularly satisfactory due to cost, inadequate response time, or general inconvenience.
Response to a message recorded on a common answering machine, for instance, usually requires an intermediate transcription of the caller""s number with subsequent dialing of that number by the user. More expensive and sophisticated answering machines provide means for digitally recording a phone number input by an unanswered caller, to be later displayed or automatically dialed,.at the option of the called party. However, such equipment is permanently affixed to a user""s phone line and can only be utilized at the user""s premises.
There has also been proposed an automatic return call service within the user""s local telephone switching system which would provide for the switch, upon the user""s requesting signal, to place a call to the memory-stored number of the party who had last called the user""s telephone number. While this procedure eliminates some of the earlier-noted drawbacks of prior alternatives, it unfortunately introduces disadvantages of its own. Among these are the limitation of retained call identification to only the single most recent call, and the lack of knowledge or consent on the part of the calling party with respect to retention of the number.
Each of the foregoing approaches requires that the called telephone be simply unattended, and not otherwise engaged as a busy line. Under the latter condition, call-waiting services provide some relief, but suffer from such undesirable aspects as persistent conversation interruption and lack of busy line awareness on the part of the calling party in the event of non-response by the called user.
The need has thus long persisted for a system which can provide the called user with the ability to implement options which will enable the completion of any number of calls which the customer was unable to answer over an extended span of time, as well as to automatically create a log of all incoming calls.
The present invention provides a technique for bridging the gap between an initial call and a return call by using network capabilities to capture the caller""s information and provide efficacious means for reaching the caller at a later time. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, the subscribed user, i.e., the called party, is provided with an opportunity to access a self-generating return call list which stores the names and the telephone numbers of the callers who could not speak to the subscribed user, e.g., the subscribed user was not available to answer within a predetermined number of rings or was busy with another call. The return call list also includes date and time of each missed call.
In addition, the system may be configured to create entries in the return call list for all incoming calls to the subscribed user, irrespective of whether the incoming calls were answered or not. In this configuration, as soon as the call for the subscribed user is received at a destination central office, the corresponding automatic number identification (ANI) (i.e., the telephone number of the calling party) is captured. Other related caller identification information available from a network database is also retrieved. The ANI and other information are then added to a return call list to be stored in a local database easily accessible to the subscribed user.
In either configuration, the system may prompt each caller by means of a prerecorded announcement whether they wish to be added to the return call list of the called party. If the caller responds in the positive, the system retrieves general information about the caller, e.g., his/her name, and creates an entry in the return call list prior to caller disconnect. Otherwise, a normal disconnect will take place when the caller hangs up.
The subscribed user may at any time access the return call list, either from his own telephone or some other DTMF telephone set. The system also permits the user to review entries in the list, add an entry, delete an entry, or access any one of other special services to which the subscribed user may be subscribed. The subscribed user may access the enhanced services related to the return call list either by touch-tone or voice prompts.
In one embodiment, the present invention is a method for processing telephone calls, comprising the steps of (a) receiving an incoming telephone call from a caller intended for a service subscriber; (b) automatically capturing caller information and generating an entry in a return call list for the service subscriber; and (c) enabling the service subscriber to subsequently access the return call list to retrieve the entry for the caller and place a return telephone call to the caller without requiring the service subscriber to enter a telephone number for the caller.
In another embodiment, the present invention is a system for processing telephone calls, comprising (a) means for receiving an incoming telephone call from a caller intended for a service subscriber; (b) means for automatically capturing caller information and generating an entry in a return call list for the service subscriber; and (c) means for enabling the service subscriber to subsequently access the return call list to retrieve the entry for the caller and place a return telephone call to the caller without requiring the service subscriber to enter a telephone number for the caller.
Yet in one more embodiment, the present invention is a, a telephone call processing sub-system in a telephone network, comprising a processor configured to the telephone network; and a database memory configured to the processor. The processor is configured to receive caller information regarding an incoming telephone call from a caller intended for a service subscriber; to automatically generate an entry in a return call list for the service subscriber and stored in the database memory; and the processor enables the service subscriber to subsequently access the return call list from the database memory to retrieve the entry for the caller and place a return telephone call to the caller without requiring the service subscriber to enter a telephone number for the caller.